Issue Position: Property Rights

Issue Position

I believe the right to individual property is a "natural right" (I subscribe to the Labor Theory of Property - John Locke). Some examples of property rights that the government should be focused on protecting and not violating include: your right to control and use your property, your right to benefit from your property, your right to sell or give away your property, and your right to exclude others from your property. Property can take the form of objects or your money. So often we lose sight of the fact that government taxing of our money is, in essence, government taking of our property. It should not be the right of the government or a majority of voters to take away your property according to the latest whim. Our government was founded on two competing concepts: majority rules vs. minority rights. If left unchecked, the former easily tramples on the latter. This was James Madison's fear: "…measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority." It is the beginning of oppression.

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